Thematic and Infrastructure Investing

Thematic investing selects companies by their exposure to a long-term trend, such as artificial intelligence or space, rather than by sector, country or size. A theme often spans several sectors at once.

An exchange-traded fund that invests in companies tied to a specific theme. Thematic ETFs differ widely in how strictly they define the theme, how many companies they hold and how they weight them, so two funds on the same theme can behave very differently.

The physical and digital capacity that AI systems run on: chips, memory, networking, servers, data centers and the power and grid equipment that supply them.

Data centers need large, reliable supplies of electricity. Grid connections, transformers and generation capacity can take years to approve and build, which makes power one of the main constraints on how quickly AI capacity can grow.

Look at its holdings and how much of each company's business comes from the theme, how concentrated the portfolio is, how much it overlaps with broad-market or sector funds you already own, its expenses, and its trading liquidity. Discuss fit with a financial advisor.

The combined commercial revenue and government spending tied to activity in and from space, including launch, satellites and their components, ground networks and the services built on satellite data.

The network of prime contractors, subsystem makers, component suppliers and materials producers that design, build and maintain military systems. Most of its spending flows from government budgets.

Robots built in a broadly human shape so they can work in spaces designed for people. They draw on the same supply chain as industrial robots, including actuators, sensors, batteries and control software, plus AI models for perception and movement.